Christa Pike, a 50-year-old woman on death row in the United States, remained alive after Tennessee officials administered two doses of a lethal drug during an attempted execution.
Pike was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
Media witnesses reported that Pike was still awake and snoring more than 40 minutes after the second dose of pentobarbital.
The Tennessee Department of Correction did not immediately provide an explanation for what happened, while Pike’s lawyers filed an emergency motion seeking to halt the execution.
The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had temporarily halted Pike’s execution shortly before it was due to begin, saying more time was needed to consider her arguments that evidence of childhood sexual abuse and neglect had not been properly considered when she was sentenced to death.
The US Supreme Court later overturned the stay, clearing the way for Tennessee to proceed with the execution.
